


bright, shining star

by salazarastark



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Mentions of Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 15:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17625353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salazarastark/pseuds/salazarastark
Summary: Of all the agents that Peggy manages to recruit for S.H.I.E.L.D. in those first few years, Susan Pevensie is her favorite. She is secretive and diplomatic, with a regal bearing that has made her seem far older than her years. Susan is a bright, shining star, one who could blind the world with her grief.(Peggy has read her file, heart knotting in sympathy over the tragedy this girl had been forced to bear too young.)





	bright, shining star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spellboundreader316](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellboundreader316/gifts).



> I must thank saiditallbefore for their amazing beta work!

Of all the agents that Peggy manages to recruit for S.H.I.E.L.D. in those first few years, Susan Pevensie is her favorite. She is secretive and diplomatic, with a regal bearing that has made her seem far older than her years. Susan is a bright, shining star, one who could blind the world with her grief.

(Peggy has read her file, heart knotting in sympathy over the tragedy this girl had been forced to bear too young.)

*

Susan hisses when Peggy applies the antibiotic to the deep scratch on her arm, but other than that, there is no reaction. Peggy frowns as she cleans the young woman’s wound. “What were you thinking?” she asks curtly. “You could have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t,” Susan says. “I got out alive.”

“Oh, yes,” Peggy says. “I’m sure you hate that.”

Susan turns to her with angry eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Peggy looks at her with stony expression. Susan, to her credit, gives no show that it fazes her and all she does is meet it.

Oh, how Peggy adores this bullheaded, frustrating girl. She is sure that Colonel Phillips is having a good old chuckle at the fact that she has found and is mentoring her younger self. 

“I have read about your family, Susan,” she says, “and how they all died in that awful train crash.” Susan flinches at the mention of her family. “But you don’t have to try so hard to join them.”

“What makes you say that I’m trying to join them?” Susan fires back. 

Peggy gestures to her arm. “That bullet could have easily been inside your head if I hadn’t pulled you back in time, and you didn’t seem to care, all you did was charge foolishly into a situation, not caring at all about your safety.”

“I got the hostages out,” Susan snaps.

“Yes, you did,” Peggy replies. “But as the director of S.H.I.E.L.D, let me tell you that the whole point of ‘getting everyone out’ is getting  _ everyone _ out. You matter just as much as the hostages, and your life should only be risked in the very worst of circumstances. You aren’t going to die on me, Susan Pevensie. I refuse to authorize it.”

That pulls a grin out of Susan, just let Peggy hoped it would. “Yes, Director Carter,” she says. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” Peggy says. “Two weeks vacation, paid, and before you say one word, the fact that you are looking at me like I shot your dog after that very generous offer shows how much you need it. Go wherever in the world you wish -  _ except _ the S.H.I.E.L.D. bases. Do try not to make too much trouble.”

“No promises,” Susan says.

“I said  _ too much _ trouble, dear.”

*

Peggy loves Susan’s stories. One day, Susan had come over to the house to deliver some files. Robert had a lot of work at the office and Aubrey and Brandon were both sick, miserable in the way that toddlers can be when they don't know why their bodies have betrayed them. Peggy was taking advantages of her status as Director to stay home and try to soothe their ills.

Within a half-hour, Susan manages to get sucked into the vortex of Peggy’s children demanding stories and attention.

The stories were lovely, imaginative, filled with characters that Susan described with such love in a fantastical world that made Peggy wonder exactly where she was drawing from.

As Peggy worked on the files, she listened to the excited gasps of her children as Susan spun her wonderful tales on a place called Narnia.

*

Susan never talks much about her family. Peggy understood that,how one could take grief and make it so personal. The thought of sharing it with another person, even one who would sympathize and understand, sounded like the worst thing in the world. So Peggy never asks about the Pevensie’s and Susan never asked Steve.

Sometimes though, she speaks about them, mention something about one of her long passed siblings.Without realizing it, Peggy gathers up these kernels of details about Susan the way a magpie gathers scraps. 

“Peter was magnificent,” Susan smiles as they watch the sun rise over the hills of England, sipping from her cup of tea. “And Edmund just, and Lucy, of course, was valiant.”

Peggy isn’t quite sure what the words mean, but she knows they are important, that Susan is giving her something by telling her this.

“What were you?” Peggy asks, her eyes never leaving Susan’s face, Susan’s eyes planted firmly on the horizon.

“Gentle,” is the whispered response.

*

Soon, without even realizing it, she finds herself confiding in Susan about Steve. They agree on how strange it can be, how the heart can take the absence of someone it loved so dearly and slowly heal itself over, until you don’t quite know how life would be if they were here. The first time you can’t imagine what they would say, the first time you can’t remember their laugh.

The first time you don’t think about for a day, then a second, and then so on.

The first time that happens and you  _ don’t _ feel guilty.

*

They get older, they get wiser. They learn that the world might not be what they thought it was, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t try to make it so. Peggy notices, and delights, in the fact that Susan becomes one of the top agents in S.H.I.E.L.D. and takes all the new agents under her wing.

One day, she asks Susan if she would want to be Director in the future. She is not offended by Susan’s laugh and then blunt, “No.” Peggy would not want this job either if it had not been carved into her mind and soul. She laughs along with her.

She does notice that Susan directs her towards all the agents that could become Peggy’s replacement one day, and she is not sure if she would have noticed Nicholas Fury if it wasn’t for Susan.

*

Time goes on, and with it their lives, until one day they’re old women, the difference in ages long erased by just how old they are. They are laughing over the antics of their grandchildren, at how innocent in this world they are, and how they will never learn what their grandmothers had to do to protect them.

Then the children comes inside, and Susan begins her stories of Narnia, delighting the grandchildren as much as they did the children, as much as they delighted Peggy.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this fic!


End file.
